


Coffeeless Mornings

by Yakarmi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Badass Mikasa Ackerman, Emotions, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and a Smidge of Smut, Pining Jean Kirstein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:42:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30050079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yakarmi/pseuds/Yakarmi
Summary: Normally, Jean having a crush on his neighbor would be enough of a problem. But of course, not only was Mikasa his neighbor, but she was also his ex-boyfriend's sister.
Relationships: Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein
Comments: 16
Kudos: 48





	Coffeeless Mornings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CathLean](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CathLean/gifts).



> A request from CathLean. Enemies to lovers AU where they're neighbors and don't get along at first. Eren is Jean's ex.
> 
> However, in writing this, I got a little carried away and wrote a pining Jean so most of the "enemies" comes from Mikasa's vague dislike/annoyance for Jean.
> 
> Also! I absolutely love this pairing. This is the first fic I've written for them and it was actually so much fun.

Jean’s mornings usually tasted of coffee. Stumbling out of bed, the first thing he would do was grope around blurry-eyed for the little energy-making machine and a minute later he would take his first sip. Bitter with a jolt of energy just strong enough to ensure him that he was still alive. It was the routine that kept his blood pumping and his body moving.

This morning, however, Jean’s coffee maker had made the terrible decision to break.

At least it was Saturday.

Cussing out the machine, Jean skipped his normal routine of a fried egg and toast in favor of a bland bowl of cereal. Eggs were a privilege only afforded to an awake Jean with the energy to actually make them.

The small rounds of carbohydrates clinked and bounced off his bowl as Jean emptied an old box. Staring down at the unimpressive meal with an empty gaze, he poured out the milk, eyes focusing on, but not really seeing, the way it wettened the dry cereal into something more palatable.

Using an arm to prop himself up as he slumped over the table, Jean started to shovel it into his mouth. Cardboard and sugar. And no coffee.

As Jean continued swallowing down the cereal, stale with age, he thought that this was most definitely the start to a terrible Saturday.

He was unfortunately proven right when a sudden shout from outside his apartment made Jean jump, the contents of the spoon halfway to his mouth spilling onto his lap. Milk soaked into his pajama bottoms and soggy cereal fell to the floor.

“Shit,” Jean cursed, dropping the spoon back into the bowl. “Who the hell-?”

There was another shout and loud knocking this time and Jean knew exactly who it was.

_ Eren _ .

Not caring about the new milk-stains on his pants or the way a few little rounds of cereal were clinging to him, Jean stormed over to the front door of his apartment ready to give his asshole of an ex a piece of his mind. 

How did Eren even find him? Jean had moved two weeks ago and they had broken up a month before that. Grumbling and deciding that if Eren said he wanted his old sweatshirt back  _ now _ , Jean was going to rip it up in front of him.

“Eren, what the fuck are you doing here?” Jean yelled, yanking his door open.

But the space in front of his doorway was empty. Great, he was crazy and imagining his ex-boyfriend.

“Jean?” 

Turning his head, Jean’s jaw went slack as a few realizations hit him at once.

Firstly, that Jean had not been hallucinating and Eren was in fact in his apartment building, on his floor, and the cause of his wet pajamas. Secondly, that Eren, loud and as annoying as the day they had met, had not been banging on his door but the door of the apartment next to him. Finally, that the door was now open and glaring at him from just within the threshold was probably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Even in the fluorescent glow of the hall lighting, her close-cropped black hair shone, giving her an almost ethereal glow. Her eyes, although glaring, glinted sharp, vicious and captivating.

Jean stared dumbly at his ex and the woman, mouth parted slightly and at a loss for word.

“What are you doing here?” Eren asked, as though Jean had less right to be standing there than he did. It broke Jean out of his trance.

“I live here. What are  _ you _ doing here?” Jean stepped out from his apartment, hands on his hips and chest puffed. 

“Visiting my sister, dickwad.” Jean’s eyes widened and flickered between the two standing in the doorway next to him. Eren had mentioned having a sister a few times in passing, but he didn’t know anything about her. Seeing her now, he could not for the life of him see the family resemblance. They looked nothing alike. “And nice pants, by the way. What happened, you wet them?”

Jean glanced down, surprised and then embarrassed when he saw the spongy cereal and small wet stain still very obviously present for the entire world, and especially the beautiful woman who had turned out to be Eren’s sister, to see. His cheeks heated and he quickly brushed the cereal off his pants and onto the hall. Eren looked all too pleased with himself, a smug smirk twitching on his lips.

“That’s you and your loud ass’s fault,” Jean shot back. His eyes flickered over to Eren’s sister, still standing at the door, arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed. Anger, embarrassment, defensiveness, it all mixes and tangles and jumbles in his chest. “Would it kill you to be a bit quieter?”

“You get so excited that you pee when you hear my voice?”

His eyes snapped back to Eren, taking in the sneer that he’d grown used to even if they hadn’t dated that long. It brought back old feelings of bitterness and resentment that had Jean stepping forward, concentration narrowed in on Eren and ready to argue once again. 

Sparks, whether aggressive or sexual, had flown between them from the first moment they had met. It’s what jump-started their relationship. But while their passion burned bright, the flame ate away at any real semblance of a relationship all too quickly. In the end, they only lasted a month and a half.

“Eren,” the woman finally spoke; a low, serious tone that made Jean’s insides flutter. “Stop causing a scene and come inside.” 

Jean snorted, reveling in the way Eren immediately backed down after being told by his sister. Like a well-trained animal.

“And Jean, was it?” Jean’s breath caught in his throat at the sound of his name coming from her mouth. The woman looked him up and down once, almost clinically. “Pick up the cereal, it’ll attract mice. And next time, please wear a shirt.”

_ Shit. _ Jean had forgotten that he slept shirtless.

“By the way,” Eren said, as his sister pushed his shoulder to try and herd him into her apartment. “Do you still have my sweat-”

And there it was, the sweatshirt that Jean was most definitely not giving up after three months. It had cemented a place in his wardrobe.

“No,” Jean cut him off, ignoring the resulting flash of an eye roll as his sister finally succeeded in pushing him into her apartment. Scowling at the door and memory of Eren’s face on last time, Jean returned to his apartment,

Leaning against the shut door, Jean felt his head spin and had to sit down. The whirlwind of events that had already taken place this morning playing on a reel through his brain. Coffee maker broken, a tragedy. Cereal split, embarrassing and sticky. Seeing his ex, shitty as always. But seeing his sister… 

Jean hummed and leaned back into his second-hand couch, staring up at the ceiling. That may have been the turning point for his entire day. Eren’s sister. Her presence and words, no matter how brief, left an impression in him. She was beautiful, composed and just a little cold. 

Was it wrong to already have a crush on his ex-boyfriend’s sister? Had he already made too big of an ass of himself?

He sat there for longer than he would have liked thinking about the conversation he had just had before he realized. He only knew her as Eren’s sister. He didn’t even know her name.

_ Fuck. _

\---

Somewhere around noon, Jean decided that the only way to make things up to his new neighbor was to bake her cookies. Granted that’s usually what old neighbors usually did to welcome new neighbors and the practice seemed almost entirely confined to the suburbs, but it was still neighborly. And Jean could be neighborly. 

So, after Jean had taken a shower, he had a mixing bowl out, flour-powdered counters, and cookies in the oven. All for the sake of trying to remedy an already potentially broken bond with his next-door neighbor. That’s all it is, he told himself.

_ Liar. _

Half an hour later, his kitchen worse for wear and the wrapper for the chocolate chips with the recipe printed on the back finally no longer needed and in the trash, Jean had a plate of chocolate cookies prepared. A quick taste-test confirmed that he had neither made a mistake like mixing up sugar and salt or forgetting vanilla extract nor cooked them for too long or too little.

When he finally heard the door next to him shut and Eren call out a goodbye, it was time to salvage his image of a decent human being.

After the fifteen minutes Jean had taken to steel his nerves and give enough time between Eren leaving and cookie giving, he wiped a sweaty, nervous hand on his pants and knocked on his neighbor’s door. Eren’s sister answered within 30 seconds.

“Hi, I- uh, made cookies,” Jean said, starting a bit awkwardly. “I wanted to apologize for all the commotion earlier and get to know you, be a good neighbor. And oh- my name’s Jean.”

“Oh.” The woman looked down at the plate in surprise and smiled a little, a simple curve of her lips that made Jean’s cheeks heat. “Thank you, and I remember your name, you’re Eren’s ex, right?”

“Yeah…” Jean looked down at the cookies he was still holding uncertainly. “Although we didn’t date for all that long. I mean, it was never really that serious.”

“I know,” the woman said simply. “Eren told me all about you. In detail.” 

She was no longer smiling and Jean forced himself to swallow back the implications of the woman hearing about his disaster of a relationship with her brother. 

“All good things, then,” Jean joked, pushing the cookies towards her a little, hoping she would take them.

The woman looked back down to the plate.

“You know, I don’t think Eren would really like it if I accepted cookies from the ex he described as ‘a hotheaded’ and ‘having a horseface.’”

She raised an eyebrow at him, looking amused. At the mention of Eren’s ‘nickname’ for him, Jean felt the smile fall from his eyes even as it stayed pinned to his mouth. He did his best to remain as composed as Eren’s sister seemed to be.

“All the more reason to take them?” Jean tried. He was graced with another true smile, floating with the realization that those had the potential to breathe life into him. The woman took the plate from Jean.

“Agreed. Thank you, again.”

And as she turned to head back into her apartment, Jean remembered that he still had no idea what to call her aside from “Eren’s sister.”

“Ah wait!” Jean called out and the woman stopped and looked back, head tilted to the side to indicate she was listening. “What’s your name?”

“Mikasa.”

The door shut and the lock clicked all while Jean remained standing outside it, staring straight ahead.

Later on, while he was making himself dinner, Jean tried the name out for himself. Muttering it under his breath, the name rolling comfortably off his tongue.

_ Mikasa. _

\---

Jean didn’t end up seeing Mikasa again until Tuesday morning while he was leaving for work. Coffee maker back up and running again, he looked a lot less disheveled than the first time they met, proud of himself for leaving his home relatively well put-together.

After locking his door, he turned to see Mikasa doing the same. He froze for a moment, staring at the woman who had been peppering his thoughts since Saturday morning. Over the weekend, he had decided to ask her out.

“Hey, Mikasa!” Jean called out. “Good morning!”

The woman turned her head and nodded in acknowledgement.

“Morning,” she politely said back and started down the hallways to the elevators. Jean sped walked to catch up to her.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you in the morning,” Jean said, stepping ahead to press the down arrow for the elevator.

“I usually leave earlier, I accidentally slept in this morning.” 

The little light above the sliding door blinked signalling the arrival of the elevator and they stepped in. As the doors closed, Mikasa kept her gaze straight ahead. Jean followed suit, staring at their distorted and blurry reflection in the metal of the doors.

“Earlier?” Jean pulled out his phone to check the time. “It’s 6:30, how early do you usually get up?”

“Usually around 5 or 5:30, I walk to work.”

A golden opportunity had just opened up for Jean.

“I can drive you if you’d like!” Jean offered hastily. A bit too hastily if the raised eyebrows Mikasa gave him were any indication. The elevator dinged again and the doors slid open to the lobby of the building.

“I can still make it if I walk,” Mikasa said and walked out ahead of Jean.

“Shit,” Jean whispered to himself, seeing his window of opportunity waning. He took a deep breath in, deciding it best to ask her out now. He ran to Mikasa’s side again. “Ah wait, Mikasa!”

She stopped and looked up at him, face blank.

“Yes?”

“Do you maybe want to go get coffee sometime? Or dinner! But I figured since you seem to be a morning person…”

Mikasa’s mouth tightened and her lips pulled into a thin line. Jean’s heart started sinking. 

“Jean,” she started, voice level and soft. The voice of someone about to reject him.

“Yes?”

“You are my brother’s ex.” Jean’s smile fell into something more resembling an awkward showing of teeth.

“And?” 

Mikasa shook her head.

“No.”

Mikasa walked away, taking Jean’s freshly given heart with him, still beating and pouring blood on the floor. He had known it was a bad idea and yet here he was, asking out his ex’s sister and watching her reject him.

For the rest of the week, Jean made sure to wake up earlier, skip the cream in his coffee, and wear his best work-clothes. He even passed on the treasured ‘casual Friday’ in his office and his coworkers took notice. Connie and Marco, joking around, had asked if he had a hot date that night. The combination of Jean's poorly concealed dejection and the casual slump in his shoulders for the rest of the day made sure that none of his other coworkers questioned him again.

In the end, though, Jean would proudly say that it had all been worth it. For each morning, he ran into Mikasa, and each morning they would exchange short words of greeting. Words that, no matter how sharp or clipped, never failed to aid his morning coffee in giving him that extra jolt of energy. Maybe Jean was just a poetic and romantic fool, but being in the same room as Mikasa made the stains in the hallway carpets disappear and the fluorescent lighting seem more like the natural, life giving beams of the sun.

Even if he did never build up the nerve to ask Mikasa out again.

\---

That Friday after work, Mikasa returned Jean’s plate, clean and completely devoid of chocolate stains.

Jean had been in the middle of cooking dinner. When he had opened his refrigerator that evening, the nearly bare shelves had glared back at him accusingly. Luckily, college his currently single young-adult life had taught him all about improvisation and cooking. Throwing together his last two chicken breasts, some garlic that had been beginning to sprout, parmesan, butter and the rest of a bottle of cream, Jean had the proud beginnings of a dish that would hopefully last him until he went grocery shopping Sunday. 

He had just put a pot to boil for the pasta when there were two short knocks on his door.

His heart had nearly beat out of his chest when he opened it to reveal Mikasa, plate in hand. In shock, his mouth opened and he might have whimpered out a ‘hi’ to what seemed to be his altogether unimpressed neighbor.

“They were good cookies,” she said, obviously deciding to ignore Jean’s pathetic greeting. She handed the plate back to Jean, who took it automatically, barely acknowledging the compliment. All he could think about now was how thankful he was that he hadn’t yet changed into his sweats. 

Not getting any real response, Mikasa nodded her head once. 

“Thank you again.”

And then she turned to walk away, again, and Jean thought about the extra effort he had gone through each morning to look like a good and total non-asshole.

“Would you like to stay for dinner?” The words had just slipped out of his mouth, but had caught Mikasa mid step, right before she could slip away again. She sighed up to him.

“If I say yes will you stop looking at me like a kicked puppy?”

“I- I guess so?” Jean had thought he was playing it cool.

Mikasa turned back around and walked the half step back to Jean’s door.

“What are you making?” She asked. “It smells good.”

Jean’s face suddenly hurt with the force of the smile that split across it.

“Chicken and pasta,” Jean chirped happily, holding the door open for Mikasa to enter. “Do you have any allergies?”

“Just shellfish.” Mikasa stood on the welcome mat Marco had forced Jean to buy, looking around his apartment. Suddenly nervous, Jean closed the door and motioned for Mikasa to follow him as he brought the clean plate to the kitchen. The pot on the stove had already begun to bubble.

“Perfect, I’ll just get to boiling the pasta then. It should only take a few minutes. Just, uh, have a seat.” Jean, too nervous to actually look back at Mikasa, listened to the dull scrape of the chair being pulled back and put what seemed to be two servings of pasta to boil.

“You look like you cook a lot,” Mikasa said and Jean turned around to see her nod to the cleaned pans next to the sink that he hadn’t put away yet.

“Yeah, I taught myself in college. Can’t live off of take-out forever,” Jean joked, all of his conversational skills flying from his brain as he leaned against the counter. He searched the kitchen to look for a conversation starter. His eyes zeroed in on the cabinet right above the fridge. His alcohol cabinet. Wine was romantic, right? “Do you want some wine?”

A small smile flitted across Mikasa’s face. Fleeting. But as brief as it was, it left Jean feeling warm inside.

“Do you have any red?”

“Yes.” Jean pushed himself off the counter to grab a bottle. “Do you care that it’s not chilled?”

“Chilled?” Mikasa asked as Jean pulled out his wine glasses and cork opener.

“Yeah, wine is supposed to be chilled right?”

For a second, Jean had thought that maybe he had made a fool of himself. At 25 years old, Jean’s only experience with wine had been the boxed wine his friends had brought to house parties and the maybe two times he had taken a date to a nice restaurant. He had thought it was a safe bet to assume that the latter demonstrated the proper, or at least sophisticated, way humans were supposed to consume wine. And at the restaurants they always brought it out in a little bucket of ice, the wine glass going fuzzy with slight condensation when poured.

But what if he had assumed wrong and that was just a restaurant thing? Would Mikasa think he was ignorant or uncultured or-

“I have absolutely no idea,” Mikasa said. “But I know I’m fine with warm wine.”

“Ah. Good.” Jean relaxed and poured out a glass for her, putting it on the table with the bottle. He took his own cup and returned to the counter space next to the stove, taking a sip with her. He wrinkled his nose slightly. He wasn’t a fan of red wine.

“It’s pretty good,” Mikasa commented, taking another sip.

“Yeah, it was a gift,” Jean said, nodding as he forced himself to swallow more.

“Not a wine connoisseur, are you?” Mikasa leaned an elbow on the table and put her head in it to smirk up at Jean. The corners of her eyes creased in a way that suggested actual amusement and Jean smiled back.

“Not really, but my friend got it for me. Told me it would do me good to ‘expand my palate,’ so here I am.” Jean gestured at the wine glass with a wry smile. “Although personally, I like it tastes like shit.”

“Come here.” Mikasa gestured for Jean to come over, sitting up straighter.

“Why?” Jean asked, despite already moving and handing the wine glass to her outstretched hand.

It was with wide eyes that he watched Mikasa take the wine from his glass and pour it into hers. She stopped when the red line of the liquid fell just below the lip of the cup and Mikasa took a sip of it so that it wouldn’t overfill before pouring the rest inside.

“There, now just don’t tell your friend.” Her smirk had turned into an actual smile and left Jean speechless.

“Oh, um, okay.” Jean’s voice rose to a pitch not normally reached by his vocal cords. At that, Mikasa seemed to realize what she had just done and looked between Jean and the glass, a light red color dusting her cheeks.

“Oh, sorry,” Mikasa apologized, putting down the full wine glass. “I used to do that for Eren. He doesn’t like wine either.”

The words reminded Jean of the time Marco had invited them to his house for dinner, pouring them both wine and remaining none the wiser as Jean and Eren had taken turns dumping the alcohol into each other’s glasses behind his back.

“Yeah, I, uh, I know.” Jean grimaced down at the empty wine glass and put it at the edge of the sink. “You know, him being my ex and all.”

“Right.” Mikasa gently pushed her wine glass away in a silent rejection. She stared at her hands, letting the awkward quiet that had befallen them to hang in the air.

Swallowing heavily, Jean went to go check on the spaghetti, stirring it and picking at a strand with the fork he’d been using to stir it. He poked at it. Ready. And just in time.

By the time he had used the pot lid to strain the pasta and was busy plating the food, Mikasa had evidently been suffocated enough and broke through the uncomfortable silence.

“You know, Eren actually asked me to get his sweatshirt back from you,” Mikasa said. Jean’s grip around the spoon he was using to dribble the cream sauce over the pasta tightened with his resolve to never give the sweatshirt back.

“I don’t have it.”

Loosening his grip, Jean brought the plates over to the table, being careful not to clank the porcelain down in front of Mikasa.

“Oh, this looks good.” Mikasa twirled some spaghetti around her fork. Taking a bite, she looked back at the pasta, eyebrows raised in shock.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Jean asked with a laugh, sitting down across from her with his own plate.

“I didn’t expect you to actually know how to cook. You should see the way Eren lives. You would think he didn’t know that a frying pan existed.” Mikasa smiled down into her pasta, before seeming to realize what she had said and wincing.

“Yeah, again, I’m… well aware.” Jean took a deep breath in.

“I’m sorry. It can’t be comfortable with my bringing up your ex all the time,” Mikasa apologized.

“Mikasa,” Jean started, the words coming to him as he spoke. “Eren and I weren’t really serious or anything. I mean we dated for a while but it never really progressed anywhere.”

“Jean.” Mikasa put down her fork and folded her hands in her lap. Her voice was steady, almost pitying, sounding like she was ready to cut the whole night short. 

“Seriously,” Jean rushed to say. “Eren and I were a terrible couple. There really wasn’t anything between us.”

Mikasa remained quiet for a minute, hand coming up to grip her fork again and push around some of the pasta.

“Eren said the same thing,” she finally admitted. “But don’t you think it’s just a little awkward, us…” She gestured between them. “Talking about it? I mean you had sex with my brother.”

“Maybe don’t think of that? Just wait to see how the night goes.”

“This isn’t a date, Jean.”

Mikasa’s stern expression left no room for arguments.

“Of course not!” Jean’s face felt like it was going to crack into two. “It’s just two neighbors getting to know each other, yeah?”

_ Liar. _

“You said the same thing about the cookies.” The sentence was phrased as an argument, but Mikasa was starting to twirl spaghetti around her fork as though contemplating another bite.

“And they were good, right?”

Mikasa sighed and picked the wine glass up with her other hand, taking a big gulp. She set it down and looked up at Jean.

“What could one little dinner hurt?”

Beaming and feeling as though he had won something despite the circumstances saying otherwise, Jean agreed.

“How about we don’t talk about Eren again tonight,” Jean suggested. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

“So,” Jean said, taking a bite of his own food and privately also surprised at how good it tasted. “Why do you wake up before the sun to get to work?”

The question earned him a smile, and Jean noticed then that one side of Mikasa’s cheeks dimpled slightly.

Despite the faint hauntings of the ghost of the first half of their conversation, the rest of the evening went as smoothly as could be hoped. Mikasa told him about her work as a paralegal, going into detail and occasionally, with a focused passion that made her eyes concentrate, almost predatory like, devolving into technical terms Jean had absolutely no hope of understanding. But even then, legal jargon Jean would normally find to be a sleep-inducing level of boring, sounded fascinating just through proxy of it having come from Mikasa.

In further avoidance of any topic too close to Eren for comfort, they ended going on long, rambling conversations about nothing in particular. They learned more about each other, Jean smiling as he admitted his secret love for ‘Devil Wears Prada’ when Mikasa told him she was a Meryl Streep fan and Mikasa laughing when Jean told her about how he used to pretend he was a pig as a toddler, too busy talking to notice the food cooling between them.

At the end of the night, Mikasa waving goodbye with a tupperware of cooled food they hadn’t gotten around to eating, Jean got that gut feeling. The terrifying and blissfully peaceful sensation that he told him that he was most certainly going to fall in love with Mikasa.

\---

Another week of waking up early in anticipation of the much more pleasant pre-work conversations Jean had with Mikasa passed by in a blink. Unfortunately, as Jean refused to go to bed at a reasonable time, the lack of sleep was finally taking a toll in the form of deep bags under his eyes.

Connie and Marco, unanimously and much-too loudly, decided that the only cure was for Jean to relax, which to Connie of course meant alcohol. Jean was 90% sure that the whole scenario was really just devised as an excuse to try out the new bar near his apartment complex.

Which brought him to where he was now, at a small table in a crowded room that smelt of the usual combination of beer, pretzels, and nachos, his eyes struggling to stay open. He was exhausted and, looking down at the tankard Marco had forced into his hand a few minutes ago, he wistfully thought about his coffee making, wishing for the bitter brew as he struggled to keep his eyes open.

Maybe then he would have the energy to not fall face first into his cup.

“Mikasa!”

Jean’s head shot up and swung around, the mere mention of her name sending a lightning bolt of energy through him. And that’s when he spotted her.

Wearing the same flowy red blouse and black slacks she had been wearing when Jean said goodbye to her this morning, Mikasa was walking through the crowded dining area to the bar. Jean’s breath hitched. Even in the dim, foggy lighting she looked gorgeous.

“Oh wow,” Connie said from Jean’s side, his eyes following Jean’s to see Mikasa. “She’s hot. You into her?”

“W-what?” Jean sputtered, trying to avoid the scrutiny of his friend who had just caught on to the girl he had been crushing on for the past two weeks. 

His eyes once again found Mikasa who was now seated at the bar with a drink in hand, talking to another woman who had her brown hair pulled up into a high ponytail.

“She is very pretty,” Marco agreed, also watching. “Why don’t you go introduce yourself?”

“She’s my neighbor,” Jean sighed, putting his face in both his hands dragging them down. “And Eren’s sister.”

“Oh…” A realization seemed to immediately hit Marco, but instead of seeming horrified at the news, he grinned. A little too toothily for Jean’s liking. “Is she the reason you’ve been getting to work early?”

“Dude, didn’t you hear me? She’s Eren’s sister.”

“Yeah,” Marco said, steepling his hands in front of him in the way that meant he thought he knew better. “And you and Eren barely dated. Why not go for it?”

“It’s his  _ sister _ ,” Jean protested once again. Marco raised an eyebrow to tell him his argument wasn’t convincing. Jean shook his head. “I just, wouldn’t it be awkward? I don’t know, man…”

“Well you better figure it out,” Connie said, finally joining the conversation. He pointed over to where Mikasa was sitting. “It looks like she’s getting hit on.”

A man, blond hair slicked back and muscles straining against a button-up that looked much too small for him, was leaning over the counter between Mikasa and her friend. He had his elbow propped onto the wooden sill and was leering down at the smaller woman, ignoring the way her uninterested eyes drifted away from him to scan the rest of the bar. 

Silver eyes sliding over towards him, Jean couldn’t bring himself to look away and pretend he wasn’t staring. It was when they made eye contact, Mikasa’s widening a fraction, that the man reached over to push a strand of hair out of Mikasa’s face. She flinched and an anger he hadn’t felt since the fight that had ended his relationship with Eren flashed up within him.

He abruptly stood up, not a single plan crossing his mind, and ignored Connie’s protest to sit back down. Mikasa had looked away from him and was now glaring up at the man that had just touched her. Challenging him.

She said something, face stern, and the brute of a man just laughed, reaching out to touch her arm.

In an instant, the whole scene a whirlwind of motion, Mikasa had grabbed the offending arm and twisted, slamming the man into the bar. The glasses hanging just above clinked together in applause and a drop of her friend’s drink splattered onto the counter.

The entire bar had fallen silent, watching as Mikasa, eyes frigid and unyielding, whispered something into the man’s ear, twisting his arm just a little bit more. A small sound that could almost be called a whimper escaped the once intimidating man’s mouth and he nodded.

Mikasa released him, not even watching as he scampered off to a group of men who must have been his friends. They started laughing, jeering at him and patting him on the back, breaking the stillness of the room and causing the volume in the bar to rise back to something resembling normal.

Only a few feet remained between Jean and Mikasa and she looked up at him expectantly. Jean wet his lips.

“You okay?” He asked, making the effort to maintain eye contact despite the coolness that still lingered in the tight set of her jaw.

Mikasa gestured down to her outfit, not an inch of fabric out of place.

“Obviously.”

Jean nodded slowly and looked around, hyper aware of the way people kept glancing over when they thought Mikasa wasn’t looking. The bartender, who was wiping down the spot on the counter where the man’s face had been, met his eyes long enough to scowl at him.

“Maybe we should get out of here,” Jean suggested, dragging his eyes back from the bartender to Mikasa. She raised an eyebrow, one side of her mouth twitching up to a half smile.

“What about Sasha?”

“Sasha?” Mikasa nodded to the woman she had been talking with earlier, who at the mention of her name looked up from where she had been talking with Connie and Marco. Jean hadn’t even seen them walk over.

“I’m good,” Sasha said, waving them off, sharing a smile with Connie. “Just let him walk you home.”

“And don’t worry about your tab,” Connie added, a shit-eating grin on his face. “You can pay me back later.”

Jean immediately pieced together just what Connie and Marco had intercepted Sasha about. He glowered at them only to be shooed off with a wave of his hand.

Mikasa shrugged at him, eyes still locked onto Sasha, also evidently having realized what their friends were pushing. She tore her eyes back to Jean.

“Let’s go, then.”

Once they had exited the bar, Mikasa turned her eyes up to him.

“So, what was your plan?” Mikasa asked. Jean blinked down in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you walking up back there,” Mikasa explained, a hint of amusement coloring her voice. “Were you hoping to be my ‘knight in shining armor’ or something?”

“I didn’t really have a plan,” Jean admitted, looking down at his feet in embarrassment. “Sort of acted out of instinct.”

“Figures,” Mikasa said breathily, looking up to the sky. “I’m starting to get the feeling that all men just go with their gut.”

“What?”

“I mean look at you.” Mikasa turned to study Jean’s face, her eyes lingering on his lips for a second. “You just don’t give up, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You never stopped looking at me like a kicked puppy,” Mikasa teased, smiling up at him, the dimple appearing again. Her face was more open than he had seen it before, allowing some of the tenseness that lived within the muscles to relax. Even over dinner, she had kept a small layer up.

“Oh.” Jean blushed. “I- I didn’t mean to be overbearing or anything, I didn’t really realize I was doing it. Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“A little,” Mikasa admitted, making Jean feel like a piece of shit. “But you're not overbearing. You waking up early every morning to greet me isn’t too bad, but maybe a bit creepy.”

“What?” Jean looked at her in alarm. “You- you knew? I can stop, I’m so so-”

“I’m teasing you,” Mikasa said gently, looking back up to the sky. “It seemed innocent enough. You never really tried to ask me out again and don’t really give off ‘threatening vibes.’ Kicked puppy, remember?”

Huffing, Jean dragged a hand down across his mouth.

“Damn it,” he swore lightly, and for the first time, he heard Mikasa laugh. It was light, airy, and it made Jean want to join in and float across it with her. So he did, enjoying the way their voices mixed in the night air.

“Do many people give off threatening vibes to you?” Jean asked when they had both finally stopped laughing. Mikasa turned her face to him, question in her eyes. Jean elaborated. “You forced a full grown, hulk of a man into submission back there. It was cool, pretty sure if I had intervened I would have had my ass kicked. Where did you learn that?”

“Oh.” Mikasa’s cheeks reddened, and looked down to her feet. “That was a pretty basic self-defense move, but I do some MMA.”

Jean stopped and stared at Mikasa in wonder. She paused and looked back at him.

“Really?” Jean asked, eyes lighting up. He had seen a few professional matches but didn’t know much about the sport. “What’s that like?”

Mikasa, as it turned out, was even more passionate about MMA than the law. The whole walk back, Jean found himself caught up in the way her eyes seemed to brighten when he asked questions, the way she bit her lip and focused on a point in the distance when trying to think of how to explain something, the way the street lights cast ever-moving shadows across her face. By the time they reached their building, Jean felt a little part in his heart already mourning her loss.

“Hey, would you, perhaps, like to come up for coffee or something?” Jean asked as they exited the elevator to their hall.

“Coffee?”

“Yeah.” Jean looked over to his door. “You know, or tea or something, just to talk a bit longer.”

Mikasa stopped in right between their doors, eyebrows raised.

“At 9pm?” Her mouth twisted into a half smirk.

“Yes,” Jean answered, nodding slowly as he tried to make sense of the expression on her face and the look behind her eyes.

“Are you really asking me to come to your apartment for coffee at 9pm,” Mikasa started. “Or are you propositioning me?” 

“P-propositioning?” Jean sputtered. “Like, sex?”

“Yes, that’s generally what it means.” Jean blinked at her, mouth opening and closing once. He swallowed. Hard.

“Jean,” Mikasa said again, when Jean didn’t move or speak. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

“I-I mean, I was kind of just hoping to talk more,” Jean stuttered out, knowing he was about to put his metaphorical foot in his mouth. “But if you mean generally, you sort of know I like you romantically and usually sex is included in that, not that it has to-” 

“Jean?” Mikasa cut him off.

“Yes?”

Mikasa leaned in, rising to her toes to lightly and briefly cover Jean’s mouth with her own. When she pulled away he could still feel the faint pressure, the ghost of her touch… 

“I don’t like coffee,” she whispered, lips grazing his ear, and walked over to his door, leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.

Jean swallowed heavily, hands fumbling to his pocket to pull out his keys. Passing a now smirking Mikasa, he slowly twisted the key. He took a deep breath in, watching the muscles of his wrist as the lock clicked into place, think about Mikasa. Mikasa who was standing right next to him, nearly touching. Mikasa who had just kissed him. Mikasa who was about to enter his apartment-

He turned the knob to his door and it made the dull thumping sound of being twisted all the way. Pushing gently, he held the door open for Mikasa, watching her kick off her shoes at his entryway.

In college, Jean had seen this scene play out many times. Bring a girl over for a hookup, invite her in, show him his bedroom… Except.

Except, as he showed Mikasa to his room, he was acutely aware that he didn’t want this to be just a hookup.

“Mikasa,” Jean said, licking his lips again for courage. “After this can we still go on a date or…?”

He trailed off, looking at her expectantly. Her eyes crinkled again in the way that made her look happy without a smile and she nodded.

“Of course, but didn’t we already have one or am I supposed to think that you wining and dining me in your kitchen was just so that we could become better neighbors.”

Jean looked at her incredulously, mouth open, shaking his head and laughing a little. He leant down to kiss her, bringing a hand behind her head.

“You’re going to drive me crazy,” Jean whispered against her lips and he felt her smile.

“Good,” she whispered, pulling back a few inches. “Because I need to ask. Isn’t that Eren’s sweatshirt hanging in your closet over there?”

“Uh…” Jean started to pull away to go look at the closet he had most definitely let open but Mikasa stopped him, hand firmly holding his head in place.

“Just teasing,” she breathed out all Jean could focus on was the way her gaze stayed pointed at his lips. “Keep it, I won’t tell if you don’t.”

And then they were kissing again and touching and despite the faint remains of alcohol tinting their saliva, it was amazing. But because of the sharp reminder of the alcohol, Jean paused.

“Wait.” Jean stopped and looked down at Mikasa who groaned, her shirt already halfway over her head. “Are you, you know, sober enough for this?”

For the second time, Jean heard Mikasa laugh, high and light, not at all as serious as she usually sounded, and just as beautiful as before. She continued to throw the shirt off, the flimsy top landing somewhere in the corner of Jean’s room. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath in and struggled to keep his eyes on Mikasa’s.

“You saw me, I only had one drink.” Mikasa draped her arms around Jean’s neck, looking him in the eye. “Are  _ you _ sober enough?”

Jean’s eyes flickered to her lips, still red and kiss swollen, then back up to her eyes.

“Definitely.”

“Good.” Mikasa stood up on her toes and quickly pecked Jean on the lips. As she fell back to her heels, Jean followed, one arm looping around Mikasa’s waist and pulling her close, the other tangling itself in her hair again to bring her in for a longer kiss.

Mikasa sighed into it and Jean let the hand he had on her waist roam, exploring and discovering her body for the first time while she did the same. As he slipped his hands under the strap of her bra, pulling them around and light dragging the pad of his thumbs across her nipples, she brought her hands under his shirt, trailing her fingers up his abs, rippling them across his ribcage, clumping his shirt around his neck.

Jean removed his hands for the few seconds it took to first unbutton and then untangle his arms from his button up and pull his undershirt off, the collar getting momentarily caught on his chin. Mikasa laughed a little breathlessly and reached around her to take her bra off, shrugging the garment onto the floor.

Jean only took a minute to look down, admire the beauty he had been pining after for the past two weeks, before he found himself lost in her. Caressing her breasts, rubbings her sides, kneading her ass as he drank down her moans, as low and rich and delicious as her voice. She bent into it, hands groping, caressing back. Both their clothes were thrown to far off places in the room.

That night, lit only by the moon and city lights streaming through the window, Jean and Mikasa found each other for the first time in the warm sweat and low gasps of sex.

\---

As Jean surfaced from the dregs of a peaceful sleep, he noticed a warmth coming from the other side of his bed. It made the space under the sheets just a few degrees warmer than his normal side of toasty. All the same, it felt comfortable, familiar, and was entirely welcome.

Blinking his eyes open, Jean turned his head towards the warmth to see Mikasa laying there, surprisingly still asleep. Eyelashes fanning out across her cheekbones, hair mussed and tangled on the pillow, and faint, whistle-y snores made her the vision of perfection. 

The image of her asleep next to him washed away the lingering effects of sleep and with a smile, Jean rolled around, gently slipping an arm around the bare skin of her shoulders. Mikasa’s nose twitched, reminding him of a bunny, and she opened her eyes, squinting up to look at Jean.

“Good morning,” he whispered, kissing the spot on her cheek where her dimple formed.

“Morning,” Mikasa mumbled back, yawning.

“Do you want a cup of coffee?” Jean asked, his hand playing with the strands of hair that had fallen across her face. The side of Mikasa’s lip twitched up.

“Sorry, I’m not really a fan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for reading, I hope you enjoyed the story!
> 
> Comments and Kudos always appreciated


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